the wintered pain a truth brings:
scattered words
to deboss the snows in one land
sands in another

and light muddied is settled by morning
the eyes can’t help but focus
turn south
to the bulging glow of Persephone

who’ll soon dress the mountain
a brash kiss of emerald
toe to crown
stitch to his coat the lurid crocus
the drunken bee

still half here, sleep and she,
hands spread over shoulder, over breast
over sorrow and pleasure
till they are mixed to the consistency of joy
dispersed like pollen
icing the whistled ballads of blackbirds

and truth nests of course
in the shivered angles of the early swallow
and in the hoarfrost and rime
on the reclusive stone
who let the riverbank cover her
wooed to sleep, pillowed
by all things
written to be
burnt or forgotten or remembered
or eaten with the fingers

words like leaves
fickle about time
trimmed here, there
the breath that ran out before the end of the page
heard still in the crook of dawn

overt in imagery
words sipped for solace
for a taste of one another

as the swallow thaws
and the river splices
ropes of season and daylight
washes the mountain’s feet

and he stirs and wakes
she was here
her Eurydice smile
the last to fade

he wipes the catkins from his eyes
takes up his pen, his pain
to begin his bright season of words

~

For A